All About Us: Escape with the bestselling, most gorgeously romantic debut love story of 2020!

by Tom Ellen

  But when I open the door, there’s no one there. It’s not even my front door – it’s the door to another room entirely, a room I don’t recognise, dingy and grey and sparsely decorated, with two people sitting on a sofa in the centre.

  I realise instantly what I’m looking at, and even though part of me somehow knows this is a dream, the shock is still visceral.

  It’s me, as an old man, and Alice as an old woman.

  We’re sitting at opposite ends of the couch – so far apart that we might be strangers – our heads bent, not speaking.

  I cry out – I’m not sure what I say – but Old Me looks up suddenly, and I feel the same jolt of panic as when Rich glanced round to see me in the park. This time, though, it’s not the shock of being spotted; it’s horror at the expression etched deep into my weathered old face. My eyes are glazed and vacant. I look tired and broken and defeated.

  And that’s when the dream finally buckles and comes apart, the room starts collapsing piece by piece, crumbling and dissolving and melting until there’s nothing left except …

  ‘Ben? Ben … Are you awake?’

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ‘Ben?’

  I try to lift my head, but I can’t; it’s too heavy.

  I’m lying down, my face pressed against a hard surface, and my whole body feels brittle and stiff, like I haven’t moved in days.

  There’s no motion sickness or dizziness like there usually is after a jump; it just feels like I’ve been asleep for about a decade, like my brain is floating slowly to the surface from the bottom of a deep, dark lake.

  ‘Ben? What the hell?’

  It’s Daphne’s voice. Oh my God, Daff …

  Something ignites inside me, and I manage to wrench my eyelids open. My surroundings swim gradually into focus, and when I look up, she’s standing over me, hands on hips, her face full of confusion and concern.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she says. ‘What are you doing up here?’

  A burst of pure happiness surges through me like electricity. I can’t believe she’s really here. A sound comes out of my mouth that is part gasp, part groan. Am I hallucinating? Am I still dreaming?

  ‘Daff?’ I croak dumbly.

  ‘Were you sleeping up here?’

  I stare around me, blinking stupidly against the light, my body still tense and heavy but starting to fizz with the exhilaration of what I think I’m seeing.

  I’m … I’m in the attic. I’m with Daphne in the attic in our flat. Next to me, a biscuit tin lies open to reveal various items: a ticket stub, a tattered programme for a play, and a fake plastic revolver.

  Relief crashes over me in a tidal wave, and I stare up at Daff in joyous disbelief, my heart battering against my ribcage.

  ‘Ben … Hey – what are you doing?’

  I have no control over what I’m doing, and before I know it, I’ve wobbled to my feet and pulled her towards me in a tight, breathless hug.

  ‘Oh Daff …’ I stammer. ‘Oh my God … I can’t believe it … I can’t believe you’re really here!’

  ‘What … What is going on, Ben? What’s happened?’

  I’m vaguely aware that I’m crying now – tears spilling hotly down my cheeks, soaking into her hair as I hold her – but I can’t help it. I thought I’d never see her again. I thought I’d lost her.

  ‘I thought I’d …’ I try to tell her, but the words collapse under a sob.

  ‘All right, Ben, seriously, this is getting weird now. What is going on?’

  She pulls away and holds me at arm’s length, looking even more perplexed than she did before. My God, she’s beautiful. With another rush of euphoria, I realise she is wearing the exact same shirt and jeans she was wearing on Christmas Eve 2020, before I went to meet Harv in the pub. I’m still not entirely sure whether this is all real or I’m imagining it. I feel like at any moment the whole scene might crumble and dissolve, just like that room did in the dream. I can’t bear the thought of her disappearing, and I’m about to take her in my arms again when she spots the biscuit tin next to me.

  Her worried frown morphs slowly into a surprised smile. ‘Oh my God …’ She kneels down, laughing softly. ‘Why were you looking through this old stuff?’ She picks up the gun and the programme. ‘Haven’t seen these in years …’

  I want to reach out for her again, so badly, but instead I hear myself say, ‘I can’t believe you kept it all …’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘Yeah, well, there’s more where that came from.’ She reaches into the box behind me to dig out another, larger tin. Then she pulls the lid off and holds it out so I can see what’s inside.

  The electric charge pulses through me again as I process what I’m looking at. Among the various letters and postcards and photos, four items stand out: a fully opened advent calendar featuring twenty-four pictures of Larisa Oleynik; a chunky glass award that says RISING STAR across the bottom; a cheap snow globe depicting the Dodo Manège in Paris; and a delicate dried white lily plucked from a funeral wreath.

  I try to work some moisture into my parched mouth. Daff takes the award out and turns it over slowly in her hands. ‘I don’t think I ever even told you about this …’ She looks at me and sighs. ‘So, is this really how you’ve spent the whole evening? Getting pissed and maudlin and taking a trip down memory lane? I notice the tree still hasn’t been done …’

  Without thinking, I pull her towards me again, the breath exploding out of me as I take in her feel and her smell. She smells like her. She smells like home. ‘Oh my God, Daff,’ I whisper into her neck. ‘I missed you so much.’

  ‘Oh-kay.’ She laughs uncertainly. ‘I was gone all of five hours, Ben. How much have you had to drink exactly?’

  I move back and look at her. ‘What day is it?’

  She laughs wearily at the question, and slips her phone out of her pocket. ‘Well, since you ask, it’s actually Christmas Day. Five past midnight on Christmas Day, to be exact.’

  She holds up the phone. The date reads: 25 December 2020.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she says.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ I murmur back, and I can feel something swelling to bursting point in my chest now, because I know that it’s true: I’ve been given a second chance. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve never felt so grateful for anything in my entire life.

  ‘Is that new?’

  She’s looking down at my wrist. The watch reads five minutes past midnight. I lift it to my ear. It’s still ticking steadily. Does that mean my journey is over? I’m finally back where I’m meant to be?

  I look up at Daff. I can’t blow this. I know exactly what I have to do now.

  ‘It was … a present,’ I say slowly. ‘From Harv.’

  Daff stands up and dusts herself off. ‘OK, well come on,’ she says. ‘We can put all this stuff back in the morning. Let’s go to bed now.’

  ‘No, Daff … wait.’

  She sighs. ‘Ben, please. It’s been a pretty exhausting day all round. And now I come back and you’re drunk and being weird and—’

  I cut her off, desperately. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But I’m not drunk, I promise.’

  ‘There’s a nearly empty wine bottle downstairs that would suggest otherwise.’

  ‘I know, but …’ I can feel the words boiling up inside me, rushing to get out. ‘Listen, Daff, there’s something I want to tell you – something I need to tell you – and I know that it’s Christmas and it’s late and this is not exactly the ideal place or time for a big, serious talk, but this is the most important thing I’ll ever say. And I just please – please – need you to hear me out while I say it.’

  Over the course of this manic gabbled statement, the look of mild irritation on Daff’s face has transformed into one of genuine concern. She stares at me now, her eyes wide, almost fearful.

  ‘What?’ she says hesitantly. ‘What is it?’

  I take her hand and guide her gently back down to sit on the floor opposite me. And as I look deep into her bi
g hazelnut-brown eyes, it all comes flooding back – everything I’ve just been through.

  That instant spark between us in the bar after the play, and the realisation in the maze that I’d made her find me. The memory of her and Mum looking at me fondly across the dinner table. The shame of knowing she gave up her Rising Star evening to come home and comfort me, then the night of the pantomime, when we ate turkey sandwiches and retraced the early days of our relationship. The searing guilt and regret over what happened with Alice in Paris. The way Daff was there for me at Mum’s funeral – the way she’s always been there for me, no matter what. And then the sickening, hopeless terror I felt in 2023, knowing I’d lost her forever.

  And finally, that piece of advice Harv gave me as I lay on his sofa bed with my life in tatters: It’s not going to be easy to win her trust back. It might be the hardest thing you ever do in your life. But isn’t it worth the effort?

  This is my last chance. I can’t risk losing her again. I just can’t. This is the right thing to do – even if it ruins everything.

  ‘Ben?’ Daphne urges, her eyes searching mine. ‘What is it?’

  I swallow the lump that’s rising steadily in my throat. ‘I just … There are some things I need to tell you. But before I do, I want to say sorry. For how I’ve been over the past couple of years – and before that, to be honest. I’m so sorry. You’re … Daff, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I love you so, so much.’

  Her beautiful face is still etched with anxiety. ‘I … love you too,’ she says tentatively.

  ‘OK … Well, here goes.’

  And right there in the attic, just after midnight on Christmas Day, I take a deep breath and tell Daphne the truth. About everything.

  I tell her what I said to Mum before she died, and how the guilt of it has eaten into me ever since. I tell her I’m sorry for pushing her away in the months and years after Mum’s death. I tell her I should have let us grieve together, but I was too stupid and selfish and shattered to realise it. I tell her about my dad, too: how I’ve spent years either worrying that I’ll turn into him, or desperately wanting to prove him wrong for abandoning me. I tell her that all my fears and doubts about work and marriage and having kids were linked to him leaving, and it’s a mess I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to untangle, but I think I’m finally free of it now.

  And Daff cries and kisses me and tells me it’s OK and she understands and she’s so happy that I’ve told her all this. And it’s the greatest feeling in the world, being held by her like this, but somehow I manage to pull away, because there’s more I need to say, and if I get too comfortable in her arms, then maybe I won’t say it.

  So next, I tell her what happened in Paris with Alice. I tell her how I felt afterwards, how guilty and how sick. Then I tell her what happened at Marek’s wedding in that photo booth. I tell her it was Alice who kissed me, and not the other way round, but I’m honest about the fact that I didn’t push her away either. I show her the messages on my phone. I tell her I was planning to meet Alice in four days’ time, but that I am going to cancel that meeting. Because I understand now that if I go ahead with it, I’ll be ruining the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life hating myself for it. I tell her I’m sorry and that I’ve been a total fucking idiot. I promise her that nothing like this will ever happen again – and I truly, truly mean it.

  I tell her I will do everything I can to make things better, because she is my wife, and she is the person I love most in the entire world, and that’s the only thing in this life I’m genuinely sure of, and I know I can make her happy again if she’ll give me another chance.

  The words pour out of me uncontrollably, and even though I burn with shame at most of them, and it rips me apart to see how much they hurt Daphne, it’s a relief to finally have them out there. It’s a relief to finally be honest with her.

  The hours afterwards pass in a blizzard of tears and anger and disbelief. I’ve said everything I needed to say, and so, for the rest of the night, I listen.

  Daff is quiet at first. She seems almost dazed, shaking her head like she’s still processing everything I’ve told her. But as she starts talking, the fire rises in her, and the fury and the pain come spilling out. She cries and she shouts at me, and I take it, because it’s exactly what I deserve, and I can’t bear to see the hurt I’ve caused her. Through jagged tears, she tells me how lonely she’s felt over the past few years, how agonising it’s been to feel that we’re drifting apart without either of us even acknowledging it.

  At one point, with anger flashing in her eyes, she tells me that Rich has hinted several times that he’s interested in her, but even when things were at their worst between us, she never dreamed of letting anything happen.

  This vaporises what little strength I have left, and all I can do is cry breathlessly, just repeating how sorry I am, over and over again, like a broken record.

  We move from room to room in the flat, alternately crying and talking and shouting, until finally, as the sun starts to come up outside, we’re left sitting in silent, broken exhaustion at opposite ends of the living room sofa.

  Daff goes upstairs and packs a bag. She tells me she’s going to her parents’ and she needs some time to think about everything. I tell her that of course that’s fine, she should take as long as she wants.

  And then she leaves, and she doesn’t come back.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The undecorated Christmas tree stares back at me from the other side of the living room. It seems mildly insane to suspect an inanimate object of taunting me, but that’s what it feels like.

  According to my watch, it’s now half past ten in the morning, and outside, I can hear the cheery sounds of Christmas Day whirring into action: kids laughing, dogs barking, car boots being opened and loaded with presents. Neighbours calling ‘Merry Christmas!’ as they pass each other in the street.

  And here I am: alone in my flat with the curtains drawn, two biscuit tins full of keepsakes open on the sofa beside me. I’m not sure why I even brought them down. To remind myself of what Daff and I have been through? To convince myself that we’ll be OK in the end?

  She’s been gone a few hours now, and even though I haven’t slept a wink all night, I don’t feel in the slightest bit tired. I don’t know what I feel really. Devastated at hurting her, of course. Heartbroken that she’s gone. Terrified because I don’t know when – if – she’ll come back.

  But as crazy as it sounds, I also feel a weird kind of peaceful stillness. Everything is out in the open now; both of us have been completely honest with each other for the first time in years. I’ve finally owned up to my mistakes, to the hurt that they’ve caused, and now I can focus on trying to make up for them.

  When Daff walked out of the door, a horrible feeling swept through me that maybe that glimpse of my Christmas future had been real. That by telling her about Paris and everything else, I had set in motion a timeline that would lead me, inevitably, to Alice and Marek and Phil and Becky and Wyndham’s.

  But as soon as that thought arose, I swept it away. That’s not how I’ll end up. I just know it. I’ve spent too long drifting, allowing myself to be a passenger in my own life, blaming other people for the mistakes I make. It’s not Daff’s fault or Alice’s fault or my dad’s fault that I screwed up; it’s mine. I’m the one in control here. I need to remember that.

  If you don’t like your life, you can change it.

  The watch-seller was right about that – and he was right about something else, too. All that hopping about through Christmases past, present and future did make me realise once and for all what I really wanted.

  Daphne.

  It’s always been her, and it always will be. Even if I never get to hold her or kiss her or even see her again, at least I know now for sure. That’s why I have to fight for her, even if it takes everything I’ve got. If she says it’s over, I will accept that – I’ll have to – but I need t
o try. I need to prove to her that I’ve changed, that I can be the kind of husband she deserves.

  My phone rattles on top of the biscuit tin: a message from Alice. I switch it off. I can deal with that later. I sent her a text an hour ago, cancelling our drink on the 29th and apologising for everything: for what happened in Paris, and afterwards, and at Marek’s wedding. I told her that I was still in love with Daphne and I was going to do everything I could to make it work between us. Whatever Alice has said in reply, this – today – will be the last time we speak.

  I glance down at my watch again. It’s hard to stop looking at it: the novelty of seeing the thing actually ticking after all this time. I wonder if I’ll ever see the watch-seller again. Or whether he was telling the truth when I asked him about his resemblance to my grandad Jack. A mad thought suddenly surfaces that maybe he was my grandad Jack, sent back to earth from God-knows-where to look out for me. Probably best to sweep that one away too. I’m not sure I’ll ever find out the truth. Either way, I feel an overwhelming rush of gratitude towards him. Despite his maddening tendency towards vagueness, I’ve learned so much on this journey he sent me on: about myself, about the world, about how to love and how to show love. Part of me keeps wondering if I just dreamed the whole thing, but deep down, I know it all happened. I can’t explain why; I just know.

  A car engine starts up outside, and its radio bursts into life midway through ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’. I can hear the family inside singing along as they drive off. For some reason, the sound fills me with an intense sadness. My family was Mum and Daphne. One is gone and now the other might be too.

  Those old feelings of self-pity start to stir inside me again: the childish sense of injustice, the inclination to hide away, feeling sorry for myself, getting angry at things I can’t define and forces I can’t see.